winson valves

[davey]

Hi I am building a winson 1400 kit, what is the consensus on the quality of the valves? i can get some to close reasonably tightly but some always leak air when i blow through them, is it worth replacing them with better quality ones or persevering to get them steam tight.
thanks in advance
Dave

[sjtown]

Hi Dave,

From my own experience the valves in the Winson kit should be made of brass, when modelworks existed I purchased two new ones from them as they had produced them in cast iron.

As suggested by them they were a lot better, being heavy and much better machined - I have also had the valve faces machined as surprisingly they weren't exactly 'flat'!

If the valve surfaces are not flat and bedded in together some steam will leak pass and go straight up the exhaust.

I have also found that due to the valve and buckle design you will get some movement of the valve allowing it to become unseated, this means that when the regulator is initial opened you will sometimes get steam going straight up the exhaust, but as soon as there's bit more pressure in the steam chest it will seat properly and you will be off!

With regard to your problem it sounds like the valves and/or valve faces are not flat. If you can machine these down and then bed the two together with some grinding paste it should help enormously.

After all the work on mine I do get a very small continuous leak of steam but its fairly insignificant compared to before the work was done to the valve faces!

Couple of videos here of our 1400 running ( testing after I replaced a couple of piston rings)
www.gwrailway.co.uk/p/photos.html

All the best,
Steve

[Deleted]

I think that Dave may have been asking about the quality of the steam shut-off valves, eg for the injector, rather than the slide valves on the cylinders? The slide valves are obviously just as important!

I've found similar problems on the screw-down valves supplied by Modelworks - some of them close tightly, but others leak a bit. I keep meaning to buy better-quality valves for the injector steam feeds, but haven't got round to it yet. I tried lapping the conical faces together but it didn't really improve things much.

Regards, John

[sjtown]

Oh yes, teach me to jump to conclusions... I've had issues with my pistons recently and I was hoping it wasn't the valves....

I replaced all my shut-off valves with new ones from various places, most recently the reeves international range which I've found to be excellent!

ST

[davey]

My valves are early winson brass jobs, going to replace some as they wont close properly. thanks for the replies

[heronsgate]

Tacking on a question before I go looking in detail at a part built 'Winsons' kit of the locomotive. Is there any chance that the driving axle supplied by the original 'Winsons' (with eccentrics machined in) has a problem with positioning of these eccentrics. The present assembler (builder) is having a difficult time trying the get the chassis to run for more than a quarter of a turn on air. Any ideas/help/guidance I feel would be very welcome. Thanks

[davey]

hi
i am not an expert but on my engine it was setting the timing that was causing a problem, the axle eccentrics seemed fine. In the end i had a lot of help from the engineers at pembs model engineering club. I had the lap reduced on the valves and fiddled around to get the largest possible throw, ie filing the expansion links to increase the slot size. hope this is of some help. here is a link to their site, it is new so a bit limited at the moment. www.pembs-me.co.uk
Dave
ps
i would recommend starting a new thread for a better chance of replies

[heronsgate]

Thanks Davey, I will start a new thread if I find it is needed after some closer look at this particular guy's locomotive. I have of course read many if not all of the threads about this set of valve gear and it does seem that it is all down to setting the final positions that make all the difference, not something a 'novice' (with all due respect) may be able to complete.
Thanks again, will pursue and try to get it sorted at some stage.

[PeteT]

At risk of upsetting a few folk, in principle there was not 'too' much wrong with the original Winson 1400, I made the first one work for my wife a few days after the last kit arrived in 1999 and it is still in working order (a few hints to Winson and MW in the form of 30 pages of typing....). With regard to the original question, there were two problems with early Winson steam valves, machining of the body and machining of the spindle. If the body has been bored incorrectly such that the cross drilling cuts into the seat, it is a bit messy to sort out, can easily be seen looking down the hole with the spindle removed. I was lucky on that score, but the spindles were far from concentric so did not seal in the holes. Being the mean sole I was, I simply stuck the spindles in the lathe and remachined the tapers in the end. Checked them all on the end of an airline in a bucket of water and twelve years on they are still going strong. Some will no doubt be upset to know that the original economy gas valve regulator is still working and seals well enough for a hydraulic test....some things you need to change, but you don't need to change everything.